


At the End

by makeshiftrolley



Series: Snapshots [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Trespasser DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4850273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeshiftrolley/pseuds/makeshiftrolley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nyla Lavellan loses an arm, and Josephine knows one way to comfort her lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the End

The weight of the world was lifted off her shoulders when Nyla lost the mark. For once, she did not have the mark cracking through her veins, pushing to get out. For once, she could _breath_.

Yet her left forearm disintegrated with the mark, like fine dust in the wind.

 

Josephine waited by the door, hands in silk gloves intertwined at the center of her chest, mimicking a gesture of prayer. Her red coat was free of creases and the blue satin sash was fixed in its position. No hair was out of place, as if Josephine did not burst through the door of the library and flung herself into the arms of her sweetheart.

The healer tried to usher Josephine out of her lover’s arm, yet she stood firm, strong as steel; her hand firm around the Inquisitor's. Eventually, they both came to a compromise for Josephine to wait by the door.

Now, Josephine watched as the healer wrapped bandages around Nyla’s stump. When the healer finished his work, Josephine walked towards the Inquisitor; her footfalls hard and heavy as if her legs were tied to bags of sand.

Nyla never looked so weak. Exhausted, but not weak. Her eyes were transfixed at the empty space where her left arm used to be.

“Our healer is a skilled man, what would we ever do without him?” Josephine said, to fill in the empty space between them, to think about something _besides_ her missing arm or the Eluvians or the Exalted Council.

Silence.

“He was at the other side of the Winter Palace when Cassandra called,” Josephine tried again, “he carried a box filled with every healing potion, bandages, poultices…I will never know how a man of his stature could carry that weight.”

Again, Nyla didn’t make a sound. Her gaze still fixed on her missing arm.

“At least you are alive, my love. What would I say to the Exalted Council if you-“

“How am I supposed to use my other dagger now?” Nyla broke her silence. A rush of water breaking a dam, her words echoed in the tiny room.

“My love, we can always make some adjustments-“

“How can I use a dagger, a bow, _anything_ without this, this _thing_?” she sobbed, waving the remnants of her left arm, “Solas is out there with his plans to tear down the Veil and I’m here listening to this political poppycock and I’m missing an arm!”

Tears were forming at the corner of her eyelids. Josephine enveloped her into her chest, and Nyla cried. Poured her unspoken words, masked emotions, and her hidden pain into her tears as they fall, fall and fall…  

She never cried, not once; even after the fall of Haven or when they lost the Warden to the nightmare demon in Adamant or when the mark began to seep through her veins again. As the Inquisitor, she enveloped her pain in her heart. A mask, she had to create a mask to shadow her true visage, just like the players of the Grand Game.

Josephine kissed her hair and murmured, “The world can wait, my love, and I know the Exalted Council will never forgive me for this, but they too can wait. I’m here, you’re here, you stopped a war with the Qunari and you survived.”

“But the mark…my hand… _Solas_ ,” she sobbed, her lone hand crumpling the red fabric of her vest.

On any day, Josephine would have reprimanded her.

On this day, Josephine placed a hand on her bandage.

“I did say we can make adjustments, before you interrupted me with your grievances,” Josephine heard her giggle under her sniffles, “but my darling, you are still _alive_. You may have lost your hand, but you have your life. I couldn’t bear the thought of you going into those eluvians, and coming back dead or not coming back at all.”

Nyla prodded her chin on Josephine’s chest to look at her lover’s face. Her eyes were red and puffy from all the tears she shed, but she smiled; the corners of her lips twitched as if pulling her lips into a frown but it was a smile nonetheless.

“So what do you want to do? We can go back to the Exalted Council and deal with the matters of the Inquisition or we can stay here.”

“Stay, I need a moment.”


End file.
